Prove that possessing extreme wealth or being famous isn't mostly luck?

[HappySqurriel]

richardhutnik said:

HappySqurriel said:

You don't copy someone else's work to sell it as your own, you copy someone else's work to learn from it.

Sid Sackson is a very interesting case-study. After his death I read up on him because I remembed playing many of his games as a child. One of the things that 'bothered' me about his story is that he had the opportunity to be remarkably wealthy had he realized the opportunities he had. Had he applied his considerable knowledge and skill towards making videogames in the 1980s it is likely that his company would have become a dominant player on early platforms; instead, he focused on boardgames and VCR games and found himself in a shrinking market.

In many ways, Sid Sackson is like the many buggy companies in the early 1900s who continued to focus on buggies rather than the automobile.

There is NO guarantee Sid Sackson could of ever broken into the videogame business or had the understanding needed in that realm, to be successful.  The fact is that his skillset is in another area that is older, and in less demand.  I know this area, because it is where I have some talent and am fully away that top designers of boardgames make livings, and don't get rich.  Also the form of play is different to.  Videogames play different, and the skills are different.  NOW, with the casual game market being what it is, it would be more possible for the likes of Sid Sackson to of possibly made a difference.  But, that came along too late.  Thing about the 1980s also was it still wasn't that huge though.  It actually went through a crash in the early part, that had the toy industry feel videogames were a fad.  Nintendo had to do a lot, and catch some breaks, or the NES wouldn't of even taken off, as they wouldn't of found a way to get distributed in American markets. 

And speaking of Nintendo, their name means, "leave luck to heaven" (as per Wikipedia).  Considering they started out as a card company, it would make sense they would have this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nintendo

There are no guarantees of anything in life, but not being guaranteed success is quite a bit different from success being based on luck.

As for the videogame market not being that big, an individual has the best opportunity for success when a market is developing. For the most part, the wealthiest people in the world tend to be those that recognized the potential of a market years/decades before most people; and they became one of the largest and most competitive companies in the market before people saw the value in it. And in many cases, had the individual not been involved in developing their company the market would have never developed in the first place.